Metaclock

Some time ago I saw a Tweet from the arduino official account talking about an amazing project called "clockception!", the project seems to be a digital clock created using 24 analog clocks! The video run for a few seconds and I did not have the tech details, but I was amazed! So, I decided to create a new project from scratch inspired in the same concept and visuals, but more colorful using processing and a Raspberry Pi.

At first, maybe it's difficult to understand what is "a digital clock formed by 24 analog clocks". A picture is worth a thousand words:

A digital clock formed by 24 analog clocks

I decided to replicate the project creating the software from scratch using Processing, a Raspberry Pi and a small screen panel. I used a 3.5” TFT screen hat, but maybe it’s easier to use a regular 7” HDMI frameless screen. The final size of the screen panel is up to you, but if you add a laser cutted frame over the screen the final project may look like:

A video of the metaclock project running, you can see the time update animation:

To create the metaclock project you will need:

• Functional Raspberry Pi 3 or above
• Screen panel, a 7” HDMI screen is the easiest option, but i’m using a 3’5” TFT Hat
• Wood frame, created by a laser cutter machine

Steps:

• Install Raspberry Pi OS with updated packages on your Raspbery Pi
• Install the screen panel, if the panel has an HDMI connector, the installation is trivial, if you are using a GPIO screen panel, you will need to install the screen drivers on your Raspberry Pi system.
• Install processing on your Raspberry Pi (https://pi.processing.org/)
• Download the processing sketch from https://github.com/ferrithemaker/Jumble/blob/master/processing/metaClock/metaClock.pde
• You will need to change the sketch parameters (like the size of the circles, the width, the height, the distance between circles, …) to fit your screen size.
• You have also a colorful rainbow mode! :)

• Create a wood frame using a 3D printer, CNC or laser cutter machine, it will also depend on the size of your screen.

Enjoy your metaclock! 🙂